US Army Reductions

This is what Sec Def is recommending, will be interesting to see what the final product will be. Not the first time a Sec Def has proposed "cuts."
 
US Army proposed cuts

I pray they are not successful in cutting the Army.
 
Then you need to find a new war.

Pretty much, I don't see how we can justify current costs without a war but obviously on a service academy forum people are going to openly deny any sort of cuts because of the obvious personal implications. "But what will I do if I don't get AD?" "Will these cuts affect next years scholarships?"....repeated over and over.
 
Pretty much, I don't see how we can justify current costs without a war but obviously on a service academy forum people are going to openly deny any sort of cuts because of the obvious personal implications. "But what will I do if I don't get AD?" "Will these cuts affect next years scholarships?"....repeated over and over.

Least this service academy person is for "cuts," although it will likely have some adverse impact on my current employment and future employment (i.e. less job opportunity for 40/50+ with predominately DoD related experience).
 
US Army proposed cuts

I agree with you Line in the Sand that we need a new war to justify the numbers although war is the last thing we really need. It could be argued that there are threats to justify not downsizing (Russia, China, Korea, Syria, etc) but there is the tech component drones and an argument for less troops. My son wants a service academy or ROTC.

I've found that things will work out the way they will work out and we have to go with the flow. I don't like what is happening with the military; cuts, service men and women and officers being fired before their retirement after serving honorably.
 
One does assume of course that the object of a standing military is to be prepared to both prevent and fight successfully should a war break out- not just react once one does. And based on history - you really are making a mistake if you think that you can accurate predict exactly where and when your next war will break out. Funny thing about international relationships and security threats- the enemy seems to get a vote and often chooses to act based on their agenda not yours. The last time the US Army was as small as what the administration has proposed was 1939. The fact that the US was able to eventually field an Army of 8 million from that starting point rather obscures the fact that it took till 1943 to do so, and we sustained a lot of losses in getting our act organized. And in much more recent history - the reason that the Army had 6 years of Stop losses and deployments of 15 months followed by less than 1 year at home and then another 15 months in theater was because the Army wasn't big enough- and for 5 years Donald Rumsfled insisted that we weren't going to execute "Nation building" or security and stability ops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Umm- oops I guess he was wrong despite his plans. That should give one pause to consider the accuracy of the great prognosticators who so confidently predict what the future- even the very near term future will look like in a dynamic world. At the end of the day- I don't trust the administration or most politicians in general- and have little-to-no trust in those who make predictions about the future without any kind of redundant capabilities or alternatives should the future threats turn out to look somewhat other than the prediction- WHICH THEY ALWAYS DO!!

Is there room for cut backs? Absolutely. The pay and benefits have gotten pretty lucrative compared to as recently as the mid to late 90's, and as a Military retiree I don't think it's unreasonable to have military members and retirees contributing something to their health care and pharmacy costs (it is still a benefit as long as it is significantly cheaper than what the cost would be on the outside economy). Has the Officer corps grown disproportionately in size to the rest of the service? Absolutely. There are staffs and staff officers as well as a huge DoD Civilian workforce beyond the wildest dreams of George Marshall in WW2 and all those officers and high grade GS employees cost a lot of dough. Does it make sense that the Service Academies- which cost a bundle compared to ROTC and OCS to produce a graduate- are still producing officers at the same rate that they did at the height of the Vietnam War when the AD Army was 3 times the size of the current force? No. Should every new and promising technology get funded because it has some great potential? - No I don't think so. But the guys who are betting on the technology radically changing the need for people- trained Soldiers-on the ground have been wrong every single time they have made the promise so far. I wouldn't bet the farm that this time will be any different.
 
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I don't trust the administration or most politicians in general- and have little-to-no trust in those who make predictions about the future without any kind of redundant capabilities or alternatives should the future threats turn out to look somewhat than the prediction- WHICH THEY ALWAYS DO!!

Similar to our deficit being not a revenue issue, but spending problem; I see the future as not a capability issue but a decision issue.

If someone else was the President, would he or she have made the same decision as President Obama to not put boots on the ground on Libya and Syria. President Obama might wanted to put some boots on the ground, but based on our limited capabilities, he decided not to and accepted the consequences.

There is no reason for us to get boots on the ground for every regional issue we face. We have been staying out Africa and North Korea, whereas we got involved in Bosnia. If there is robust military capabilities, that's is an incentive get involved, rather exercise discretion.
 
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Similar to our deficit being not a revenue issue, but spending problem; I see the future as not a capability issue but a decision issue.

If someone else was the President, would he or she have made the same decision as President Obama to not put boots on the ground on Libya and Syria. President Obama might wanted to put some boots on the ground, but based on our limited capabilities, he decided not to and accepted the consequences.

There is no reason for us to get boots on the ground for every regional issue we face. We have been staying out Africa and North Korea, whereas we got involved in Bosnia. If there is robust military capabilities, that's is an incentive get involved, rather exercise discretion.

One can certainly make that case and in some scenarios I'm sure it's accurate. I also think that the mere fact that there ARE boots available can help to keep us from having to put them on the ground in some scenarios. I certainly agree we should be very reluctant to use military power and put boots on the ground. But I think we should have the flexibility to do so when necessary. I also think a plus to additional cuts of some nature, perhaps not this draconian, will force our allies to start looking to their own defense as opposed to relying on us.

I heard someone on a news broadcast today defending these proposed cuts due to the fact that the firepower of an infantry man today is so much greater than one in WWII. No doubt that's true. But doesn't the enemy "infantryman" also have the same relative increase in firepower?

I think this administration just doesn't like to make decisions, let alone tough decisions. I take solace in the fact that this is the President's proposed budget. When was the last time a President's budget went through congress unscathed if not significantly altered?
 
I heard someone on a news broadcast today defending these proposed cuts due to the fact that the firepower of an infantry man today is so much greater than one in WWII. No doubt that's true. But doesn't the enemy "infantryman" also have the same relative increase in firepower?

50 cent or less bullet will kill an infantryman regardless of how much firepower he has.
 
http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/a...get-cuts-just-played-the-entire-media/284058/

Charts in article link.

On Monday, large swaths of the news media reported on the Obama Administration's proposed military budget using the same misleading frame. As the New York Times stated in its headline, "Pentagon Plans to Shrink Army to Pre-World War II Level." Fox News chose the same emphasis. "The Army had already been preparing to shrink to 490,000 active-duty members from a wartime peak of 570,000," it stated, noting it will now be between 440,000 and 450,000. "That would make it the smallest since just before the U.S. entered World War II." Reuters' headline: "Budget cuts to slash U.S. Army to smallest since before World War Two."

So ... will our national defense be roughly as strong as it was right before we fought Germany and Japan, as a casual reader might assume? Not even close. What about the Army taken in isolation? No, that isn't accurate either. If these accounts were trying to maximize confusion or alarm at proposed cuts, then mission accomplished. But if the goal is helping readers to understand the size of our military (in absolute and relative terms) if the proposal takes effect, then the narrow focus on the Army and the pre-World War II comparison are poorly chosen.

The U.S. Armed Forces Circa 1940

Let's take a trip back to 1940 to see just how absurd it is to use it as a point of comparison (emphasis added):

The U.S. Army in 1939 ranked 17th in the world in size, consisting of slightly more than 200,000 Regular Army soldiers and slightly less than 200,000 National Guardsmen—all organized in woefully understrength and undertrained formations. The Army possessed only 329 crude light tanks and only a handful of truly modern combat aircraft within a total inventory of just over 1800 planes. It was a force equipped with the leftover weapons, materiel, and doctrine of the last war. It had a grossly overage officer corps, in which advancement was largely a function of seniority. Captains, for example, were usually in their late thirties or early forties. War-related industries were infinitesimal. Congress and the public were united in their staunch opposition to any increased military expenditures or involvements abroad. The mood of the country was distinctly isolationist.

The dramatic changes in the Army's experience, professionalism, hardware, and strength relative to other countries isn't the only reason the comparison is misleading. In 1940, the military broke down as follows:

Army: 269,023

Navy: 160,997

Marine Corps: 28,335

Air Force: 0 (it hadn't been created yet—that is to say, the army figure includes that era's pilots and air crews)

TOTAL: 458,355

Now, as history shows, those 458,355 members of the military circa 1940 were sufficient as a base from which to declare war on Japan and Germany in 1941, ramp up personnel, and win that war (alongside allies in Europe, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere). Not that we would've chosen that level had we known the future. Still, if it were the case that U.S. military strength was the same as it was then, it isn't at all clear that we'd have to worry about our national security, especially given the radically superior military hardware available to us today and the dearth of any opponents as formidable as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

That isn't to say that I'd endorse returning to 1940-level personnel strength. And indeed, the military is orders of magnitude bigger and stronger than it was in 1940. That's true even if every proposed personnel cut gets through Congress.

The U.S. Armed Forces Today

As of December 31, 2013, the U.S. Armed Forces was 1,369,532 men and women strong. The breakdown:

Army: 522,973

Navy: 323,134

Marine Corps: 193,815

Air Force: 329,610

In terms of manpower, if you'd totally eliminated the Army and the Navy on December 31, 2013, the combined total of the Marine Corps and the Air Force alone—523,425 people—would still be significantly bigger than the whole military circa 1940.

Also, if the Army is indeed cut to between 440,000 and 450,000 personnel, as the Obama Administration has proposed, the Army could be characterized as operating with the smallest force "since just before the U.S. entered World War II," but it would also be accurate to say that the Army of 2014 will have 170,977 more people than the Army of 1940. And again, whereas the Army of 1940 encompassed the fighter pilots and bombers of that era, today we've got a whole separate Air Force composed of several hundred thousand uniformed men and women, plus a modern Navy and Marine Corps with significantly more personnel.

America's Relative Military Strength

Of course, military strength isn't only about personnel. Circa 1940, the U.S. had a grand total of zero nuclear weapons. Today the U.S. has 5,113 nuclear warheads. An already-dated in 2011 Wired article noted that the U.S. had 7,494 drones, including 161 Predators, which are used for targeted killing. The U.S. also has 10 aircraft carriers. How many carriers does our closest military rival have?

One.

Kudos to the BBC for including a graphic in its coverage that provides context the American media lacked:


BBC
How does that chart compare to 1940?

Even after Obama's proposed cuts the U.S. will spend more on its military than all its rivals combined. Add the forces of our allies and our advantage is even more formidable.

Absurd Press Coverage

To sum up: Reporting on the Pentagon-budget proposal by comparing the size of the Army to its 1940 levels is misleading in several ways. It elides the relative strength of the Army in different eras; personnel from other branches of the armed forces; the fact that Air Force personnel in particular are now counted separate from the Army; and military hardware that acts as a significant force multiplier.

So how is it that this happened?
 
Interesting as far as it goes. It doesn't address tooth to tail differences, nor does it address a much more global economy and the importance of sea lanes vs 1939. Minor points perhaps but they need to be part of a thorough analysis... which is certainly beyond my ken. And I hope they're not suggesting we use those nukes!
 
Just remember this CBO under baseline assumptions, net interest costs are
projected to nearly quadruple from 2014 through 2024, from $233 billion in 2014 to $880 billion in 2024, while military spending will remain realtively flat.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45010
 
Serious question. How many contractors are employed by the military, doing what was done by men/women in uniform 15, 20, or 40 years ago? It seems like I see or read about them doing everything from preparing/serving food and performing routine maintenance to analyzing intel and interrogating prisoners.
 
It's not the size, it's not about the winning the war (unless the homeland is invaded), rather how many service members are going to get killed in the next conflict.

The article stated "Now, as history shows, those 458,355 members of the military circa 1940 were sufficient as a base from which to declare war on Japan and Germany in 1941, ramp up personnel, and win that war (alongside allies in Europe, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere)."

Very true, but according with Wiki, of population of 131 million, there were about 416K military KIA. If we translated that into today's population of about 317 million, over 1 million military KIA. Besides not getting involved, the only way to minimize military casualty is better prepared and right sized military. Since we can't figure out what the right size is, I guess bigger is better.
 
So it seems we all agree that using the US Army end strength from 1939 or 1940 isn't a meaningful way to compare today's army
 
Since we can't figure out what the right size is, I guess bigger is better.

Except it isn't....... free. Bigger is better.... and then the Secretary of Defense tells you the number one risk to the United States is its debt.
 
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